Volume 9, Issue 3 (September 1986)

Significance of Specimen Preparation Upon Soil Plasticity

The limits of soil behavior defined by Atterberg and refined by others and the indices resulting from their determination have become vastly important to the design process in geotechnical engineering. The methods utilized to determine these properties are under scrutiny because of the widely varying results that are found. One of the primary sources of this variance was thought to be the modes of specimen preparation.

The research reported on in this paper was conducted to determine the extent of the property variance caused by this part of the testing and to find a specimen preparation that could lead to the most uniform and acceptable result. Thirteen different specimen preparation procedures were studied, and the resulting limits and indices analyzed. The procedure found to be most successful was that affecting the double water layer situation the least. The variance noted was great enough to cause some samples to move from a CH to a CL classification. In all cases the variance noted was significant. The conclusions include recommended procedures and recommendations for further study.

Author Information:

Armstrong, JC Associate professors of civil engineeringProf.member of ASTM, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX

Petry, TM Associate professors of civil engineeringProf.member of ASTM, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX